1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to magnetic tape recorders and to subassemblies utilized therein, particularly with respect to recorders adapted for multiple track recording using a multiple track head which is responsive to servo signals and transversely movable with respect to the recording tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Data recording cartridges and recorders adapted for their use are disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,692,255 (Von Behren). The cartridge there disclosed includes an enclosure together with an endless flexible belt in frictional contact with the tape on both reel hubs for bidirectionally driving the tape. The cartridge can operate to drive the tape with rapid accelerations and decelerations, such as are encountered in digital data recording and playback. Recorders adapted to use such data cartridges originally employed fixed, multitrack heads which were complex, expensive and difficult to maintain in proper alignment.
To eliminate the multitrack heads, U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,143 (Zarr) disclosed a head positioning mechanism by which a single track head could be transversely positioned with respect to the width of the recording tape to enable recording and playback of any of a plurality of parallel tracks.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,067 (Gerfast) discloses a head positioning mechanism for a multitrack data cartridge recorder including a stepper motor, a lead screw driven by the stepper motor and a head mounting slide engaged with the lead screw by a partial female thread. The Gerfast mechanism moves a recording/playback head transverse to the path of a magnetic recording tape.
While the Gerfast mechanism works satisfactorily for some applications, a need has recently arisen to provide a mechanism which more accurately positions a magnetic recording head on the center of a selected track in response to servo signals derived from servo information carried on certain tracks on a multitrack tape. This accurate positioning is required to allow substantially higher track densities on recording tape.
The present invention offers a magnetic recording head responsive to such servo signals having the advantage of offering an extremely compact head mechanism. A further advantage of the head mechanism provided by the instant invention is that it is nearly crashproof. The mechanism of the present invention also significantly reduces undesirable translational reactionary resonances which are typically present in prior art head mechanisms.